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B&W Systems designs and distributes a variety of management software products through the Internet and retail outlets such as Best Buy. The company is considering the development of an Internet-based forecasting system designed specifically for new start-up and small business owners. The company’s primary concern with the product is timing and the possibility of new market entrants. The director of operations has been tasked with reviewing the timely implementation of the new product, including estimated completion times and costs, and presenting his findings to the board.

In March 2010, the management of A.B. Corp. announced its plan to select a definite location for its central warehouse. The company, a major producer of agriculture and farm equipment, had gone through three consecutive years of financial loss as a result of increasing production costs. Management had to select a central warehouse between four candidates, based on the location of five distribution centres, the loads to be transferred, and other factors such as land costs and tax.

Medupi was the first baseload project in South Africa in 20 years. It would be the largest dry-cooled, coal-fired power station in the world and was being developed by Eskom, which generated 90 per cent of Southern Africa’s power, at an estimated cost of R125 billion. In spite of the worldwide concern about greener energy, coal remained the most popular power station fuel for South Africa, due to the country’s vast resources of 224 million tonnes annually. The new capacity that Medupi would offer was sorely needed.<br><br>It had been challenging to follow a project schedule that involved various suppliers providing different packages at different dates and that required accommodating several interfaces during both design and implementation. Due to the massive scale and complexity of the project, three companies had joined forces to tackle the job, namely Murray & Roberts, Aveng, and Concor. Murray & Roberts had appointed Coenie Vermaak as project director at Medupi and, at 34, he was the youngest project director in the group. The managers of the joint venture had realized quickly that this would be “a project like no other.” The three companies’ different ways of working necessitated much more integrated coordination. For instance, employees from the different parent organizations had different job descriptions, remuneration, benefits, structures, processes, and cultures. Medupi’s uniqueness provided an opportunity to be pioneers in the construction industry and to “reconstruct construction.” A culture of employee engagement and alignment was required.

The degradation of the environment has led many governments and customers to pressure businesses to make their operations more environmentally friendly. The case illustrates an effective example of corporate social responsibility. Specifically, it demonstrates how a small increase in a supply chain budget can drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation of LCD TVs from their manufacturing bases to a distribution centre.

St. Mary Maternity Hospital, a nonprofit organization, had a mission to deliver healthy babies at normal weight and to offer medical care to expectant mothers regardless of their financial situation. This case demonstrates the value of staying focused on achieving a mission statement. To achieve the hospital’s mission, it was important to identify factors that could affect the weight and health of babies. This case demonstrates how a few factors related to birth could result in insightful and actionable recommendations for doctors, administrators, and policy makers.

The president of Unimicron must evaluate the degree to which the company's information systems support its business strategy. The case provides an extensive review of the company's history, its strategy and its key competitive and organizational moves. The case reviews the way in which information systems are used in the company, and challenges students to assess the degree of fit between strategy, organization and technology.

A Stockholm-based sports broadcasting firm with five international offices is facing uncertain contract renewals by its current clients from several geographic territories. It must determine the likelihood of profitability if it purchases the global broadcasting rights of the Portuguese Soccer League (Liga Zon Sagres) for the upcoming 2011-2012 season.

Between 2004 and 2011, the Universal Robina Corporation (URC) launched its first ready-to-drink bottled tea product, C2, in three Southeast Asian markets: the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia. URC’s founder hoped to replicate the success that ready-to-drink tea had achieved in China and Japan. Because of the differences in competitive tactics and consumer preferences in each market, URC needed to modify its strategic plan for each to improve the likelihood of achieving success with C2. These cases encourage students to discern which characteristics are most important for success and thereby determine the profitability of each new international venture.<br><br>In addition, the cases explore several issues pertaining to the internationalization of an emerging market firm — particularly one lacking the advantage of being based out of a larger developing country like India, China, or Brazil. Based in the Philippines, URC did not have a sufficiently large domestic market to subsidize its international operations or an internationally known brand or national characteristic to achieve leverage in new markets.<br><br>The cases provide a comparative illustration of expansion into three different markets. Case (A) illustrates a local market expansion, while cases (B) and (C) describe international expansions. In each case, students are encouraged to understand the type of localization strategy required to ensure the success of the product launch. Students will also realize that despite being neighbours, the three Southeast Asian countries in these cases have such diverse tastes and consumer preferences that knowledge and experience gained from one market will not necessarily translate to success in the others.

This case is a supplement to Selling Ready-to-Drink Tea in Southeast Asia: C2 Green Tea in the Philippines (A).

This case is a supplement to Selling Ready-to-Drink Tea in Southeast Asia: C2 Green Tea in the Philippines (A).

DD Traders was the Asian branch of DEMDACO, a privately held company that wholesaled unique gift products that were marketed and distributed to the specialty retail channel in the United States and some international markets. Carolyn Glasow recognized an opportunity to leverage a quantitative approach to sourcing future allocations across vendors that would also improve the short-term demand transparency that was provided to the company’s key business partners, which could in turn lead to increased bargaining power for price negotiations and production lead times. This was a recurring issue for Glasow and her sourcing team: how should she allocate product purchases among the various manufacturers that bid for the opportunity to supply products to DD Traders?

A loop is used in Microsoft Excel to repeat a piece of code, while an array is a group of variables with the same data type and name. This note is an introduction to different types of loops and their use with arrays in Excel Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), with brief definitions and examples. Loops types included are for-next, for-each, do while (do until), do-loop (with while and until), and nested loops. For arrays, the note presents static and dynamic arrays with examples.

A sub, function, or event procedure is a set of commands to perform a task in a Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code. One important reason for subs and functions is the reusability of VBA code. For example, if an Excel VBA application requires a calculation to be performed multiple times in its code, the user can enter a reference to a sub or function, rather than rewriting the same code for each calculation.<br><br>This note is an introduction to sub, functions, and event procedures in Excel VBA with brief definitions, examples, and screenshots. The note demonstrates how to use them in a variety of settings.

This note introduces the concept of risk or merger arbitrage. Risk arbitrage is an investing method that attempts to capitalize on announced transactions pertaining to mergers, spin-offs, takeovers, liquidations, and corporate restructuring. The arbitrageur attempts to create riskless profit by simultaneous purchases and/or sales of assets that are part of an announced transaction. In the note, we outline the basics types of deals — including cash mergers, stock mergers, cash-stock deals and embedded options — and the methods to evaluate their profitability. The note also provides information on using Bloomberg’s mergers and acquisitions database and the Bloomberg M&A Analysis function to track pending transactions in the early and mid-2000s.

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is a programming language built into Microsoft Office and other applications. In Microsoft Excel, VBA can be used to develop models, simplify repetitive tasks, and increase user-friendliness. This note is designed to provide students with a basic understanding of the building blocks of VBA programming. It is intended as an introductory reading for students with no prior experience in VBA programming.

On the night of April 20, 2010, a series of explosions rocked the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Gas in the Macondo well had surged upward unexpectedly, causing a mix of drilling mud and seawater to spew uncontrollably into the air, much like a volcanic eruption. Eleven crew members died during the explosion. The nation mourned their loss, and people watched as BP struggled to contain the environmental damage. Millions of barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico in the weeks that followed. The federal government relied on BP to manage the accident’s aftermath, in part because government officials lacked the expertise required to stop the spill. Meanwhile, BP downplayed its responsibility for the failure. As the firm failed repeatedly to stop the spill, the public became angry. This industrial disaster became the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.<br><br>The case provides a detailed description of the events leading up to this catastrophe. Readers examine the key decisions that BP and its partners made as they drilled this well. They discover the alternative choices that could have been made and learn about the disagreements that took place (as well as those that failed to surface). Moreover, the case provides an opportunity to examine how BP’s history and organizational culture shaped the way those decisions were made. The case describes how Tony Hayward and his predecessor, John Browne, led the firm and shaped the culture during the past two decades. In addition, the case explains how the regulatory environment and political forces shaped decision-making in the oil industry. The case concludes by examining the aftermath of the accident, particularly BP’s public relations miscues as it tried to manage the crisis.

This note is an introduction to simulation in Excel and VBA. The note uses examples to demonstrate different methods of doing simulation in Excel and VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). Concepts explained in this note include random number generation, probability distributions, data tables, loops and arrays, histograms, and descriptive statistics.

Pinpoint Consulting, a multi-billion dollar strategy consulting firm, has been hired by Dart Financial Corporation to provide advice on the potential acquisition of a credit card portfolio. An analyst has the task of building a model and making recommendations. The price is set at $60 million and the analyst must assess whether the portfolio is an attractive opportunity and a suitable fit for Dart Financial.

The case describes the situation faced by the vice president of A-CAT Corp. The company was a mid-sized manufacturer and distributor of domestic electrical appliances, largely catering to the price-sensitive rural population. The firm operated two medium-sized facilities in a remote district in Vidarbha, India. A-CAT manufactured a wide range of electrical appliances including TV signal boosters, transformers, FM radio kits, electronic ballasts, battery chargers, and voltage regulators. The focus was on its flagship product, the VR500 voltage regulator. The team planned to identify potential suppliers/vendors with their attendant strengths and weaknesses and to do so in a well-documented and structured manner. Analytical hierarchy process was a technique that could be used to meet this challenge.

This note is an introduction to Solver in Excel and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Solver is a Microsoft Excel tool that determines variables and objective function values of linear, integer, binary, and non-linear optimization models. These models are used in insurance, finance, operations, logistics, engineering, and medicine. This note uses screenshots to help demonstrate various examples of the use of Solver, including assembling a portfolio of ideal stocks and assigning the location of fire stations in cities.